It's from a Children of Bodom song, but the style reminds me of classic rock/bluesy type soloing in which the notes aren't linear, and there is a lot of crossing back and forth. I'd consider myself a pretty capable guitarist, but non-linear riffs such as these completely destroy me!

Are there any special practice riffs that would help me get these down?

in videos, i've seen him just shift his left hand down the pentatonic scale positions instead of dealing with that picking pattern.

but, if you want to play it like that, it breaks down into just two picking patterns, four notes each. you probably have the first down already (two notes per string), so just practice the awkward one.

It's just a pentatonic scale played in a sequence of 4 notes at a time. Like start on the 15 fret of the e string, play 4 notes of the scale descending, then start on 12 fret and play 4 notes descending etc.

The best way to get those down is basically... practicing those.

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Fusion and jazz musician, a fan of most music.

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Originally Posted by Guthrie Govan

“If you steal from one person it's theft, and if you steal from lots of people it's research”

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Originally Posted by Chick Corea

"Only play what you hear. If you don't hear anything, don't play anything."

Yea, pretty much what Sickz said. Only thing I'd add is that you can also change the number of notes before starting back over. You can play 3, 4, 5, however many you feel like. I know that the Fade to Black solo has a lick where you descend like that, but only play 3 notes instead of 4.

I myself like to put a little spin on this where you would descend 4 then ascend 3 then descend 4 and you get this sort of rolling feeling from it which is pretty cool.

You haven't been particularly specific about where exactly the problem lies. Is it with the left hand or the right hand? If it's with the left hand, then I'd guess your problem is that when moving between strings and but sticking with the same fret you're not rolling your finger, and if it's with the right hand you either have a problem with inside picking or outside picking.

Whichever is is, the best thing to do is to find (or make) and exercise that isolated the problem and trains whichever hand it is how to correctly deal with it.

Left hand. It's mostly the pinky and ring movements that are killing me. It could also have to do with that when I shred/sweep it's mostly linear, with all notes ascending or descending on one string at a time, not switching between notes back and forth on separate strings.

Quote:

Originally Posted by farmosh203

Just out of curiosity, what song is that solo from?

It's from Bodom After Midnight, it's the first little solo right after the intro that he plays with the keyboard. I transcribed it so I could be in key with the song, as they play in D and I'm in E.

Quote:

Originally Posted by J-Dawg158

You can play 3, 4, 5, however many you feel like. I know that the Fade to Black solo has a lick where you descend like that, but only play 3 notes instead of 4.

I myself like to put a little spin on this where you would descend 4 then ascend 3 then descend 4 and you get this sort of rolling feeling from it which is pretty cool.

Experiment and have fun!

This is some good advice, thanks!

Quote:

Originally Posted by vIsIbleNoIsE

in videos, i've seen him just shift his left hand down the pentatonic scale positions instead of dealing with that picking pattern.

It's out of your comfort zone, like you said you tend to play linear patterns, and the reason you've stuck with them is because you know them. It's a lot easier to get your head around playing linear stuff anyway, but because you play a lot of stuff like that it's well-drilled into your muscle memory so you can pretty much do it on autopilot.

Just slow down, be patient and practice it the exact same way you practiced those linear patterns back when they were new and you couldn't do them. Use a metronome to keep the beat and keep the tempo down at a pace you can play the run cleanly and accurately without messing up. Once you've got it nailed in muscle memory you can work on refining those movements and gradually increasing the tempo.

This is just another of those wake up calls that insist on tripping us up when we think we're cruising and remind us that we're not as good as we perhaps thought we were at this guitar lark, and that no matter how far you've progressed you still have a long way to go.

That's probably the most frustrating thing about guitar and the thing that constantly makes us feel like quitting, but also the thing that compels us to keep going- the more you know, the more you realise you don't know.

That's probably the most frustrating thing about guitar and the thing that constantly makes us feel like quitting, but also the thing that compels us to keep going- the more you know, the more you realise you don't know.

Yeah I really hate that "oh crap" moment when you realise there's something new that you can't do that well but...

...I've found that when that happens, it doesn't take that much effort to get at least fairly competent at the thing you suddenly realised you can't do that well. I've had plenty of things in the past where I've been playing stuff that I thought fairly complex, then really stumbled on something I would have assumed was quite easy. Then the fact I assumed they were quite easy meant I arrogantly dismissed them as being beneath me and didn't bother working on it and continued to stumble. Thankfully my attitude has changed since then and if I come across something that I stumble on, I will work on it, and generally with a bit of focus it doesn't take that long to improve at. The best thing about it is knowing that it probably won't take much to get fairly good at and, every time you work on improving something like that, you'll become a more versatile player.

It's out of your comfort zone, like you said you tend to play linear patterns, and the reason you've stuck with them is because you know them. It's a lot easier to get your head around playing linear stuff anyway, but because you play a lot of stuff like that it's well-drilled into your muscle memory so you can pretty much do it on autopilot.

Just slow down, be patient and practice it the exact same way you practiced those linear patterns back when they were new and you couldn't do them. Use a metronome to keep the beat and keep the tempo down at a pace you can play the run cleanly and accurately without messing up. Once you've got it nailed in muscle memory you can work on refining those movements and gradually increasing the tempo.

This is just another of those wake up calls that insist on tripping us up when we think we're cruising and remind us that we're not as good as we perhaps thought we were at this guitar lark, and that no matter how far you've progressed you still have a long way to go.

That's probably the most frustrating thing about guitar and the thing that constantly makes us feel like quitting, but also the thing that compels us to keep going- the more you know, the more you realise you don't know.

Yep, it's been a wake up call. I've been at a level to where I can play a lot of Necrophagist rhythm sections pretty well, but the other day I tried to play an AC/DC solo and wow I was stumped. His technique and style is so radically different I couldn't play it up to speed! It was a slap of reality indeed.

That's probably the most frustrating thing about guitar and the thing that constantly makes us feel like quitting, but also the thing that compels us to keep going- the more you know, the more you realise you don't know.

Sound advice, very very sound. This part in particular got me, for a while now I've felt as though I haven't been progressing, sort of rehashing played out licks n shit, until I was asked to help out in a mates band temporarily.

The solos that were written for this band are f*ckin insane (he's a Chilean dude who could arpegiate the pubes on your grandmas vaginal warts), realistically I'll need another 6 months to get them down really tight, but unfortunately I only have until January as they've been booked to open for Nightwish O.o

The last 2 months have been awesome though, going way outside of my confort zone, and learning stuff I never thought would be physically (and mentally) possible, it basically gave me a new lease on playing, and a hell of a lot of respect for the guy that wrote them

The only way to progress is to challenge yourself, you'll be thankful you did, possibly even giving a self handjob as a reward for your hardwork